


next time you fall asleep, make sure it's next to me

by raewrites



Series: Mini Fics [5]
Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Character Study, M/M, i needed to get the sormik out of my system good god, post-epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 01:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3590817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raewrites/pseuds/raewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t know how to explain it when Sorey’s gone. </p><p>You don’t know how to explain the gnawing emptiness that scratches festering gouges into your ribcage, that itches under your skin and lodges itself in your gut, holes at the base of your spine and tucks itself between your lungs; all of the places you can’t reach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	next time you fall asleep, make sure it's next to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [velvetcrowbars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvetcrowbars/gifts).



> i’m going to punt rib into the next dimension. also emmy. also ren. and eve. all of you who witnessed by ridiculously rapid decent into sormik hell. i can’t believe this. 
> 
> i still don’t know much about toz, sorry for any inaccuracies !! 
> 
> also sorry for second person. it wasn’t going to leave me.

You don’t know how to explain it when Sorey’s gone.   
  
You don’t know how to explain the gnawing emptiness that scratches festering gouges into your ribcage, that itches under your skin and lodges itself in your gut, holes at the base of your spine and tucks itself between your lungs; all of the places you can’t reach.  
  
You think of it as trying to take a deep breath, trying to fill your lungs but halting halfway, unsatisfied, breathing only within the parameters of suffocation. You breathe shallowly now, enough to get by, enough to last you as long as you need to.  
  
You forgot how cold it is in the shade, how cold it is without Sorey who leaks sunlight in the gaps between his teeth, in the laughter lines at the corners of his eyes, in the spaces between his calloused fingers, slotted together with your own.   
  
You notice the emptiness like one would notice a torn out page in a novel, shredded ends obvious incrimination of something removed, something that belonged, something that could be pieced back together should the missing page be found, should the missing page awaken.  
  
Years pass and generations are made and fade just as quickly, and you feel as though you are forcing yourself to remain static for him.   
  
You can’t stand the thought of him not recognizing you, can’t imagine being a stranger to him, unfamiliar even for the second it takes his eyes to blink away their slumber.  
  
You crave familiarity, crave the feeling of knots tightening between the two of you after lying loose for so long. Your fingers long to thread through his hair, feather-soft under your touch, lips pressing wherever they can reach, the other’s breathy laughter like symphonies tuned to the fluttering in your chest, the tears that choke your breaths to sobs when he says your name again.  
  
When he greets you, it’s in a hurried rush, his words tugged down by the guilt he feels for making you wait. The gentle furrow of his eyebrows, the small pout that pulls his lips is evidence enough that old habits sustain themselves even in eternal slumber.  
  
You admonish him for apologizing, press the pad of your finger to his chest though there’s no force to the motion. Your smile betrays you and the weightlessness that pools itself at your core holds no room for scolding, not when he’s looking at you like you never went away.   
  
Not when, to him, it’s as though you braved each century at his side, book in hand, perpetually stubborn towards removal.   
  
And as he cups your face in his hands, as he gazes at you with reassurance to all of your insecurities, with the answers to each question you ever found yourself pondering over endless days followed by endless nights, with the same hopes that lingered as your dreams faded in morning light, you suppose there’s some truth in that perception.  
  
“Next time you fall asleep," you begin, the pad of your thumb following the curve of his cheekbone, rebuilding upon a memory you hope won’t have to sustain you for years, decades, centuries, but will remember itself every day from now on, everyday with Sorey returned at your side, a page pieced back together, a proper ending to what you’d begun to think was a tragedy. What was a happily ever after, after all.  
  
“Make sure it’s next to me."


End file.
